Monday, July 30, 2007

Also known as PC-Engine in Japan the diminutive console was first released in US in 1989 boasting a 8-bit CPU with a 16-bit graphics chip capable of displaying 482 colors at once. The PC Engine was and is a very small video game console, due primarily to a very efficient three-chip architecture and its use of HuCards, credit-card sized data cartridges. Notably it was the first video game console in North America to have a CD-ROM peripheral and though The TurboGrafx-CD came packaged in a very large box, 85% of it was filled with protective styrofoam inserts.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Originally known as the Atari VCS, the console was released in October 1977, the name change taking place in 1982, following the release of the more advanced Atari 5200. The Atari 2600 is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code. Atari 2600 on wikipedia

Worth noting is it's recent appearance on ebay in an auction lot which includes...

an Atari 2600 with the box and manuals,

a stand that the system sits in, which can hold up to 32 games,

a storage drawer that holds up to 12 games,

2 Atari joysticks,

1 paddle controller set (2 paddles),

2 driving controllers,

an Atari Trak-Ball controller (appears to be new in an open box),

and a set of Atari Remote Control Wireless Joysticks (also appears to be new in an open box).

PLUS! 18 games

Seller in US, ships only within the US

Well my job is done here, it now remains for you to decide, do you bid and save this retro orphan? or abandon it to the undeserving, where it will no doubt end up in a cold and loveless home, devoid of care and attention, missing the respect and gameplay it deserves..... if you'll excuse me, I think I have something in my eye!! sniff!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

One of the joys of retro gaming is finally getting the chance to play all those fantastic sounding games the gaming press was ecstatic about, without of course having to spend a small fortune. Without further ado then, here's an ebay selection of some truly brilliant SNES (a.k.a. Super Nintendo, Super Famicom) games you just have to play, at killer prices:

Super R-Type: Classic shmup in an arcade perfect version sporting some of the best 2D pixel art ever. Seller ships worldwide.

Starwing: 3D graphics on a 16-bit console? Of course and in a pretty impressive space opera of a game too. Seller ships worldwide.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Amiga CD 32 never truly had a chance, despite being the first 32-bit console to hit the shelves worldwide (back in 1993) and selling pretty well. Commodore was already beyond hope. Still, with the Amiga CD 32 essentially being an Amiga 1200 with a CD drive and a few extra chips, games just weren't a problem. Exclusive games were. Anyway, you can find out more on the tech specs of the console here or hit Wikipedia for a more encyclopedic view of the matter.

Own one through this lovely Amiga CD 32 & gamesebay auction. It's a boxed console and comes with several games (including Putty, Chaos Engine and Liberation), 2 joypads and some pretty rare magazine cover-disks. Seller ships worldwide.

The Amiga CD 32 usually sells for a bit over 25£ 50$ or 40 euros (depending on extras).

Suppose you had £3,500.00, a pathological obsession with Sega's 16-bit MegaDrive console and a deep need to drive around England. Good. Know what what you would then do? Well, you'd definitely grab this absolutely impressive SEGA MegaDrive collection from ebay.co.uk.

It includes 324 games (many of them rare), a MegaDrive console complete with a full range of wacky accessories, a SEGA Nomad handheld and lots and lots of manuals. See but a fraction of the whole lot pictured above.

Leisure Suit Larry: Looking For Love (in several wrong places), a.k.a. Larry 2, starring Mr. Laffer and the evil Dr. Nonookie was released back during Sierra's glory days, when adventure games were all the rage and Al Lowe (designer/writer) a mega-star. The game, a humorous graphical 3D adventure with parser interface, was quite the hit and rightly so, what with its shiny graphics, excellent production values and cult protagonists. Don't believe me? Read a review by Adventure Classic Gaming.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Despite looking like a toilet-seat, the Atari Jaguar CD is the only true way of keeping your precious Jaguar alive (tons of homebrew, indy commercial and freeware games are still being released for it) and a moderately rare collector's item, usually selling around 70-80£.

To grab a boxed Jaguar CD, a memory track, 4 games including the excellent -and pretty rare- Highlander and the very rare, very unopened Battlemorph, a Tempest 2000 soundtrack CD and a Myst demo, do have a look at thisJaguar CDebay.co.uk auction. Seller ships to UK only.

Is it me or are Atari Lynx consoles getting more expensive by the day? Seems like the long era of cheap Atari handhelds is long gone. Oh, well. Anyway, someone just discovered some lovely Atari Lynx II consoles freshly preserved in their factory case, which means these are essentially spanking new consoles. Lucky us!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Another ridiculously rare thingy brought to you by Retro Treasures, the place where retro ..uh.. stuff is ..erm.. treasured. Or at least appreciated. Anyway, if you are looking for an absolutely mint condition Bandai Hyper Olympic tabletop game in its original box and are willing to spend 200£ on it, well... click yourself to Bandai Hyper Olympic Challenge 5 @ ebay. Seller ships worldwide.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Years before Harry Potter, there was an actually interesting and strictly (young) adult sorcerers college, crafted by the demented mind of Steve Meretzky the Great. The only way to explore it was via Legend's Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls (MobyGames entry), a tongue-in-cheek text/graphical adventure featuring excellent writing, smart puzzles, innovative interface and some beautiful hand-drawn graphics. Also the only game to feature a selection between naughty and nice modes.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

It's funny how sought-after huge commercial flops become and Commodore's C64 GS console is a prime example of such a retro gaming rarity. I've been obsessively searching for it for the last three months and it was only today I happened upon this obviouslyrare C64 GS ebay auction. The seller only ships to Europe.

The console usually sells for more than 35£ or 50 euros. This particular one you'll be bidding for comes with a 4-in-1 games cartridge, necessary leads, power supply and in its original box. It does lack a joystick though, but them are just so easy to find (any C64 one will do).

The C64 GS, actually a C64 with a cartridge port and no keyboard in a plastic box, was Commodore's spectacularly failed attempt to enter the 8-bit console market. It hit the UK in 1990 and flopped hard enough to end up being used as spare parts for Commodore's way more successful home-micros. Quite a few games -mostly compilations- were released for it. Anyway, even Zzap!64 reviewed the thing.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Retro Treasures, a most cunningly and if we may say so ourselves (which we apparently do) aptly named blog, is the daily resource of retro gaming pleasure both for the collector and the nostalgic or historically inclined gamer. We constantly search ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.anywhere, Play-Asia, Amazon.com and a variety of other sites & forums to bring you the most obscure, rare, fun or plain cheap in retro gaming, complete with descriptions, links, advice, freebies and of course guides on your retro shopping.

Expect anything from ridiculously rare NES and Atari 2600 games, to obscure consoles, to Amiga 500 computers, to 8-bit micros, to huge gaming bundles, to pen and paper RPGs, to classic PC adventures and everything in between. Oh, and if you would like to promote your auction/sale of any kind, do drop us a line. That's what the Contact Us! link is there for you know...

Acorn Atom (released 1980) was the forerunner to the popular BBC micro and a decent little 8-bit home computing classic on its own. Also, it's gradually becoming quite the rarity and usually sells for slightly more than 50£. Find out more about the Atom at Wikipedia, grab an emulator here, oh, and go for the micro itself by bidding on this ebayAcorn Atom auction. Seller ships to UK only.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Starting with a ridiculous low bid of less than 5£ thisSega MegaDrive, Sega Mega CD and 20 Games auction might just be the bargain of the year, though -sadly for me- only for UK residents. The games accompanying the two consoles include the rare and rather brilliant Batman Returns for the Mega CD, the classic Sonic 2 for the MegaDrive and a variety of gems from Strider, to Ecco the Dolphin, to Flashback.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Ah yes, a vintage lot of 23 ColecoVision games, waiting over 20 years for this precise moment when destiny intervenes and you are given the opportunity to hold them in your retro loving gaming hands. Caressing the cartridges in your eager fumbling fingers, taking pride in the fact you own a classic collection of ColecoVision goodliness.

But wait!!! destiny has one last obstacle in store, the other bidders (1) on this Golden ebay Retro auction opportunity. . . . .

Usually going for over 200$ (that's roughly 150 euros or 100£) the classic Japanese Famicom and Famicom Disk System combo is worth every penny/cent/whatever you'll spend on it. Thousands of available games, the rarity of the disk drive and its games, and a console definitely superior to the westernized NES (even had a lovely built-in microphone) will cater to both the retro gamer and the collector.

Unfortunately though the Famicom and even more so its Disk System are quite hard to find, especially outside Japan, but this excellent Famicom, Disk System & 10 games auction has a seller that ships worldwide. And bargain price. Hoorah!

Friday, July 13, 2007

The Sinclair ZX80, released almost 30 years ago back in 1980, was the first truly affordable home computer to hit the UK market. It was sold in kit form, which -yes- means it had to be assembled by its user, sold for a then respectable 99.9£ and you can find all there is to it over at Old-Computers or Planet Sinclair.

These days the ZX80 is as rare a vintage computer as a truly rare ..uhh.. rarity. A boxed one more so. To grab one in its original box & packaging complete with manual and power lead your only chance for quite some time might just be following this ebayboxed Sinclair ZX80 link. Seller ships worldwide.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Scope 6 for the Super Nintendo was the most outrageous and obviously biggest light-gun ever conceived & produced. The thing, you see, resembled a bloody bazooka. Anyway, it still is a fun little (?) accessory for the SNES and one you can get your hands on by bidding on the following SNES Super Scope 6 with games auction.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

My first post for this most esteemed of blogs was a pretty useless one (and they haven't improved much since). I showed you a lovely piece of Retro gaming beauty, but had nowhere to show you where you could buy one. Well I've become learned in the way of the Retro Treasure, and now thanks to my good friend Nebachadnezzar, I have a place and a price...

For here you can buy a lovely Divers 2ooo Dreamcast, perhaps the most coveted console I can think of along with the Hi Saturn Navi.

But £675?That's a hell of a lot of money! Still, its comparable to the price of a PS3, and the Dreamcast software is about a 16th of the price of PS3 software... I'd definitely buy this, if it wouldn't cost me my marriage. And I'd definitely rather this than a PS3...

Amstrad's GX4000 console was nothing more than an advanced 8-bit CPC 6128 Plus without keyboard or disk drive, but with decent AV-out capabilities and a pretty compact design. Unfortunately, the console sort of flopped (click for an almost complete AMSTRAD feature) and is now quite a rarity, usually selling for a bit more than 45£.

Happily, UK residents can get themselves a far better deal by having a look at this bargain-ish ebay.co.uk auction. It's an Amstrad GX 4000 complete with the pack-in Burnin' Rubber racing game, the excellent Pang cartridge and two controllers.

Monday, July 9, 2007

"Ahead of its time as an adventure game, a strategy game, and a simulation game, Suspended is certainly a challenging adventure to be played (and replayed) by anyone who isn't afraid of quite a bit of hard work." Matthew Murray

Never heard of Mouse-Cheese? Well, apparently it was a C64/C128 mouse by Neos and you can get a boxed one (complete with drivers and software) and in the merry company of a boxed Commodore 64 computer, a boxed Datasette and 24 games over at ebay.co.uk. Seller ships to the UK only.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Seems like only yesterday when the SNK Neo Geo (huge) cartridges cost over 200$ a piece and were a pleasure most gamers could only dream of. Well, thankfully, time can work miracles. You can now get 3 classic Neo Geo AES games (Fatal Fury 2, Fatal Fury Special and Art of Fighting) for peanuts over at a lovely Neo Geo Games ebay.co.uk auction. Starting bid is less than 1£ and seller ships to UK only.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

The Sinclair ZX-81, the ZX Spectrum's daddy, was released back in 1981 and was probably the first home computer capable of playing some decent games. It was after all the home of classic maze game 3D Monster Maze (read an excellent making of... article over @ EDGE) and brilliant Sabotage. The machine featured some lovely black and white ASCII graphics, 1 whole Kilobyte of memory and one of those dreaded membrane keyboards.

The ZX-81, despite its now laughable capabilities, is quite a rarity and usually sells for over 60£, 120$ or 85€, which means that this boxed Sinclair ZX-81 auction @ ebay is a definite bargain. Happily, seller ships worldwide.

Well here's another item I covet, and one of the only Dreamcast peripherals I do not own... (BTW I couldn't post the pics from the ebay auction for some reason, so for illustrative purposes, the arcade joystick thingy is the white box with the green buttons in the picture...)

But wait! Not only can you buy the lovely Joystick thingy but also Japanese imports of Capcom vs.SNK and Powerstone 2. One is a lovely 2D beat 'em up (that's what the Joystick is designed for) and the other is one of the most innovative and frantic 3D weapon based fighters available...

If only I hadn't spent so much money on game related shit, that I'm now in a financial nightmare, I'd definitely buy it!

If you are not currently in crisis talks with your bank manager (like me) why don't you invest in this lovely little package? you can find it here...